Adding wireless telemetry to ArduPilot

You may have noticed that we had wireless telemetry in our flight testing last week. It's really easy to add. The first thing to keep in mind is that you should use Xbee modules in a different frequency range than your RC equipment. If you've got 72Mhz RC gear, you can use 2.4Ghz Xbee modules. We use Xbee Pro wireless modules with a Adafruit adapter board on the aircraft side, and a Sparkfun USB adapter board on the ground/laptop side. If you've got 2.4Ghz RC gear, you should use 900Mhz Xbee modules. We use a Xbee Pro with the wire antenna for the aircraft, and and Xbee Pro with a SMA antenna connector (and a good 900Mhz antenna) on the ground, with the same adapter boards as above. Next, you need to set up your Xbee modules. They ship with a default of 9600bps, which you must change to 4800 bps for ArduPilot 1.0 or 57,600bps for ArduPilot 2.x. Connect them with your FTDI cable (see instructions here) then use Digi's X-CTU utility to change the baud rate to 4800 or 57,600 (in the modem configuration tab--press the Read button and then click on and change the baud rate line). You should also give them unique Network IDs so they'll be paired. Just use any 3-digit number, and just make sure you've set it the same on both modules. (Don't use 999 if you're going to be flying around me--that's mine!). When you're done with the settings, click "Write". Remember that after you change the baud rate you have to switch back to the PC Settings tab and change the baud rate there, too, or the utility won't be able to communicate with the module. (Switch it back to 9600 when you're switch to the second module, if it's still in the default mode, and repeat the process.) On the ArduPilot side, use three jumper wires to connect the following pins circled in red on the board below: --Xbee RX to ArduPilot FTDI port TXO --Xbee 5v+ and GND to the VCC and GND pins next to the FTDI port.

It will end up looking like this:

(Note: the above is to get telemetry from the Autopilot. If you just want to see the NMEA data from the GPS module, connect the TX pin to ArduPilot's RXI pin, right next to the to TXO pin, instead.) On the ground side, connect the other Xbee module to your laptop with your FTDI cable, as described here. That's it! If you open up a terminal program on your laptop and set the baud rate to 4800 or 56,000, depending on which ArduPilot software version you're using, you should see ArduPilot telemetry coming in. Anytime there is a "Serial.println" in the code, that data will be sent through the Xbees to the ground. You can record any data you want, and even GPS datalog from the ground! Couldn't be easier. BTW, if you want to test the range of your Xbee link, connect the plane-side Xbee module's RX and TX pins together to create a loopback circuit and use the X-CTU utlitity's range test function. For the modules we're using you should get around a mile. Once you've got the wireless connection set up, you can use our Ground Station to display real-time telemetry with ArduPilot 2.1 and up:

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Reber saleh haji October 16, 2014 at 2:26pm

hello i have apm 2.6 and iam trying to use my xbee pro 900 as telemetry and i failed to have connection every time........how ever i have no problem with connecting my 3dr telemetry ..............any one please help
tijuan aikens July 3, 2011 at 7:47am

is there a way to use this setup on the kk blackboard? v5.5?
Ricardo Colas September 23, 2009 at 3:00pm

Hi. I relatively new to all this.(under grad @ University of Louisiana at Lafayette)

Is it possible to use Xbee with the board that comes with BlimpDuino?
If not, what must I add to it to enable some form of wireless communication?
The Idea is for the blimp to float around gathering mac addresses. I really need some sort of push in the right direction, so any advice no matter large or small is greatly appreciated.

Thanks, you guys rule.
David Low July 23, 2009 at 9:22pm

@Peter
you meant ardupilot groundstation right?
then it is over here, btw u need labview in order to edit the source code
Developer

Jordi Muñoz July 23, 2009 at 9:09pm

Of course! 100% DIY and with a good example to start with. All is found here:
http://store.diydrones.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DE-0001-01
David Low July 23, 2009 at 9:09pm

@Peter
ardustation source code is over here
Developer

Jordi Muñoz July 8, 2009 at 12:52pm

Muot,
You should not have problems. But your government may confuse your plane as an electromagnetic flying weapon trying to jam their systems. LOL. (kidding).
Muot Vuong July 8, 2009 at 11:45am

I want to build a UAV with telemetry and video down-link. Are there any major interference issues with a 72MHz RC gear, 900MHz XBee, and a 2.4GHz video transmitter combination? Has anyone done this type of setup before? Any suggestions and tips would be really appreciated before I put out some hard earned cash. Thanks.
Earl June 9, 2009 at 10:44am

The layout on XBee boards are for an external RPSMA that are very common. I did just that on my wire ant one. I got the connector from an old wifi card.
David Low June 4, 2009 at 6:39am

@John
welcome to DIYdrones :)
the main difference is the operating frequency
XBee pro 900 runs on 900mhz while XBee Pro series 2.5 runs on 2.4ghz
Note: if not mistaken, 900Mhz band is not allowed in UK...

of 8

This reply was deleted.